The Magical Misadventures of Alfred F Jones
by Little Patch of Heaven
Summary: Eleven years ago, a young baby managed to defeat the Dark Wizard Russia and survived with just a star shaped scar on his forehead; a retelling of Harry Potter with Hetalia characters. De-anon from Kink Meme.
1. The Boy Who Lived

_This is a de-anon from the Kink Meme, the request being the story of Harry Potter with America as Harry, England and France as Hermione and Ron, Canada as Ginny, and Russia as Voldemort._

_Okay, just so you know: the casting is going to get progressively crackier because I'm running out of canon character, and there will be a lot of OCs involved unfortunately, but all OCs will have a country equivalent. (Such as Mexico and Native America) And no, I do not own Hetalia or Harry Potter. No way, right?_

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><p><strong>The Magical Misadventures of Alfred F. Jones, the Boy Who Lived<br>Chapter 1: The Boy Who Lived**

Senor and Senora Garcia were proud to say that they were just as normal as any other American, thank you very much. (Well, okay, the truth was that after Senora Garcia had moved from England to Mexico, she had met and married Senor Garcia and jumped the border into America with him, but other than that, they were perfectly normal.)

(There also was some funny business with Cuban missiles a few years back, but no one needed to know about that, right?)

Senor Miguel Garcia worked at a factory that made guns; he was a dark skinned Cuban man with long dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail. He was very tall and very broad, extremely muscled and just slightly intimidating.

Senora Maria Garcia was rather short and curvy, with long dark hair and skin just as dark as her husband's. She did not work and spent most of her time at home spying on the neighbors and adding new things to her ever-growing list of possible gossip topics.

The Garcias also had a young son, who they believed was the finest boy there could be and spoiled him quite rotten.

In their very honest opinion, they had everything they could ever want and were an example of the most perfect family.

However, they were also hiding a very interesting secret. (Besides the whole illegal immigrant and skipping the border thing, of course.) You see, Senora Garcia had a younger sister by the name of Amelia Jones who she had not seen or spoken to in many years. (Not since fleeing England to escape her family.) Amelia was married to a very strange man by the name of Samuel Jones, who Maria Garcia believed to be a good-for-nothing fool. (Who was also quite as UnGarcia-ish as possible.)

The Garcias were terrified that this well kept secret would some day come out; they shuddered to think what their neighbors would think of the Jones family and their relation to them. (Not to mention it might also lead to other discoveries…such as not being true American citizens and what not, and well, that just wouldn't do at all.)

So it was an unspoken rule that the Jones family was not to be spoken of in their household. (Or even thought of, for that matter.)

And so, it was with no thoughts of the Jones or the strange life that they led that Senor Garcia left for work on a cloudy Monday morning. It seemed like a normal morning in all senses and Senor Garcia was convinced it would be just as normal and boring as all Mondays tend to be, until he began to pull out of the neighborhood and happened to catch sight of something rather odd.

A panda bear. In the suburbs of Chicago. Reading a map.

Senor Garcia slammed on his breaks and looked again but there was no panda bear to be found. He stared for a moment before pressing the gas and laughing at himself. Of course there was no panda bear wandering in the Chicago suburbs. And certainly not reading a map. The idea was preposterous indeed and Senor Garcia had to wonder where he had thought that up. He decided to put the strange idea out of his mind entirely and focused instead on the work he would be doing that day.

However, just as he pulled into the city the factory work was forgotten by yet another strange sight: people in cloaks. As in…the sort of things children wore for vampire Halloween costumes. And not just children (or even teenagers, who could be brushed off as yet another strange fad) but full grown adults! In red cloaks, blue cloaks, star covered cloaks, cloaks of all patterns and colors!

Senor Garcia starred at them in shock before growling about strange Americans and their odd customs. (For despite 'moving' to America, Senor Garcia had never quite gotten over his hatred of Americans.) He decided he wasn't going to let a bunch of weirdos in cloaks drive him mad and continued on his way. A few minutes later, Senor Garcia arrived in the parking lot of the factory, his mind back to assembly lines.

(Throughout the day, Senor Garcia did not notice the owls crowding the skies when the rest of the people of Chicago did. Likewise, he did not notice the spontaneous meteor showers. By the time work ended, Senor Garcia had already forgotten the two strange events that morning and was back to his normal, completely usual life.)

It was when he was leaving the building and heading towards his car that the third strange thing happened. As he walked through the parking lot, he happened to walk right into a strange little man who (Senor Garcia groaned as he noticed it) was wearing a cloak. He nearly knocked the man over, but managed to catch him at the last second and pull him to his feet.

"Sorry 'bout that," he grunted, but the man merely smiled and him and shook his head.

"Oh, don't worry, friend!" the man exclaimed. "Today is such a glorious day! All of the world should be celebrating, even you Muggles! Hurray for our British friends!" And with that, he hugged the confused man and disappeared. And quite literally, too, for Senor Garcia swore he did not see the man run off but rather that he simply was no longer there.

Confused and slightly frustrated at being so very confused, Senor Garcia returned to his car. On the way home, Senor Garcia left his windows rolled down and swore he heard the name 'Jones' whispered through the streets by the cloak-wearers. Now not only confused, but also slightly worried, Senor Garcia rushed home.

He debated informing his wife about the strange occurrences and the mention of the Jones family, before realizing that Jones was a rather common American name anyway, and he did not want to worry her unnecessarily. After all, whatever strange was going on (even if, God forbid, it did involve the Joneses) would not bother them.

Or so, as it happens in most stories, he thought.

That night, as the Garcia family drifted off to sleep, a panda bear (in fact, the very one that Senor Garcia had convinced himself he imagined) wandered into the street in front of their house and glanced around as if in wait of something.

After a few moments, there was a quiet little _pop!_in the air and a man appeared out of, quite literally, thin air. The man was rather tall (taller even that Senor Garcia) and very tanned. He was just as muscular as Senor Garcia (if not more) and had curly, brown hair, a bearded chin, and green eyes that seemed to twinkle with laughter at some untold joke. He was dressed in white robes that seemed to date back centuries, with a crimson cloak draped around his broad shoulders and brown sandals on his feet. The man's name was Romulus Vargas.

Romulus did not seem to notice that everything about him was unwelcome in this neighborhood; either that, or the man simply didn't care. He was too busy looking around him, searching for something in the dark street. His green eyes landed on the panda bear only seconds later, and a wide smile spread across his face.

He did not appear shocked at all to find a panda bear in the Chicago suburbs, and as he approached it called out, "Fancy meeting you here, Professor Yao."

The panda bear rolled it's eyes at him before pushing itself up onto it's hind legs; the bear seemed to stretch itself out and contort until where there once was a panda bear now stood a rather short and skinny Chinese man. He was dressed in traditional red and gold Chinese clothes, his long black hair pulled back into a low ponytail and draped over his shoulder.

The man, Yao, placed his arms on his hips and glared at Romulus as he came to a stop in front of him. "How did you know it was me?" he asked, very clearly annoyed.

Romulus laughed, a loud booming laugh that Yao worried would wake the neighborhood, and placed a large hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "Panda bears are not necessarily a common sight in America, Yao."

Yao shrugged the hand off his shoulder and scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Yes. It's been a pain having to hide myself away here all day."

"All day? When you could have been celebrating? Why, I stopped by countless parties on my way here," Romulus exclaimed.

"Yes, and all those parties are rather careless. What if the Muggles were to find out?" Yao huffed, before uncrossing his arms and shifting awkwardly, features shifting from annoyed to a strange mix of worried and hopeful. "Then…he really is gone? You-Know-Who, really defeated by a child?"

"Yes."

"So all the rumors are true then? That last night…he… he went to Liberty Place…and, well," Yao paused to take a breath and recollect himself. "Then Amelia and Samuel Jones are really dead?"

Romulus's smile did not disappear, but it no longer looked as happy as before and carried with it a sense of sadness. "Yes."

Yao kept quiet for a moment, wringing his hands nervously. "And a child, Romulus? After all this, after everything anyone's ever tried. It was a child, barely a year old, that destroyed him? How is this even possible?"

Romulus shook his head in reply, as if to say that he did not know anymore than Yao did. (But if one were to look closely, they might have noticed the gleam of understanding in his green eyes.)

Yao quieted, glancing around him. "And why are we here, in this Muggle neighborhood? In -" he sniffed with a bit of distaste, "America?"

"Ah, this is where the boy's - Alfred Jones - last living relatives are: his aunt and his uncle. They will be taking care of him from now on."

Just as he said this, there was a small _pop!_- just as there had been with the appearance of Romulus - and a young woman appeared beside the other two. She was tall and thin, head reaching to Romulus's shoulder, with long, straight, black hair adorned with feathers and beads, and dressed in robes made of animal hide and decorated with beads. In her hands, she held a small bundle wrapped in cloth.

The woman looked up and, noticing Romulus and Yao, nodded at the both of them. "Hello," she said simply, a look of deep melancholy in her brown eyes. "I've brought him, Rome." She lifted the bundle slightly as she said this, and Yao leaned closer to see that inside it rested a small child. The baby had blond hair, but through the bangs one could see a strange scar in the shape of a star.

"That's him then, is it?" Yao asked, eyebrow raising. Romulus and the dark skinned woman nodded in reply.

Romulus took the baby from the woman's hands and approached the house of Senor and Senora Garcia. He carefully placed the sleeping child on the doorstep and, removing a letter from his robes, placed it next to him. "I'm leaving a letter explaining everything," he told the other two, before coming back to join them. "Well, there is no reason for us to stay here any longer, then. Goodbye." And with that, the man vanished.

Yao sighed, casting one last look at the baby on the doorstep, before he too disappeared into the night. Only the woman was left. She walked towards the house and came to a stop in front of the child. "Good luck, Udsi." And then she too vanished.

All through the night, Alfred Jones slept peacefully on the doorstep, until Senora Garcia found him the next morning, letting out a scream of shock before taking him into the house. And all throughout the British Isles and the United States of America, wizards and witches raised their glasses, proclaiming happily, "To Alfred Jones - the boy that lived!"

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><p><em>Maria is my OC for Mexico. Amelia Jones is Fem!America, and Samuel Jones represents the Original Thirteen Colonies. Romulus is obviously Rome and the woman is Native America. 'Udsi' means 'child' in Cherokee.<em>

_The casting of the Dursleys is not meant to offend anyone, I jsut couldn't think of anyone else to cast for those roles. Also, I don't know who to cast as Dudley - any ideas?_

_The rest of the story will not be quite so similar to the actual books, I promise! Please review!_


	2. The Boy Under the Stairs

_Thank you for the reviews!_

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><p><strong>Chapter 2: The Boy Under the Stairs<strong>

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Nearly ten years had passed since Senora Garcia awoke to find her nephew on her doorstep. The Garcia family had not changed very much.

Senor Garcia continued to spend Mondays through Fridays in the factory and free time insulting his American neighbors. Senora Garcia still lived on a steady diet of tacos and gossip. Javier Garcia, their son, had grown from a young and thoroughly spoiled baby into a slightly larger and thoroughly spoiled eleven year old.

To the people around them, there were no significant changes to speak of. Then again, to the people around them, there was no sign that another boy was living with the Garcia family.

Yet Alfred F. Jones was still there, asleep and dreaming of robots at the moment, but not for very long; his Aunt Maria was already awake and Alfred never slept long after she was up.

"¡Despiértate!"

And there it was - his Aunt Maria's loud, shrill voice. The same thing that ripped him from his dreams every morning. Accompanied by a lovely pounding on his door like usual.

Alfred sighed, rolled over, squirmed for a moment, and proceeded to fall back asleep at once. He was allowed three more minutes of blissful silence before the pounding started up again.

"I said up! ¡Ahora, niño!"

Alfred groaned and lifted himself from the bed. He blinked a few times at the blurry world around him, before reaching over to the small table beside his bed and feeling around for his glasses. Just as he found them, the door flew open and he was greeted with the sight of his very blurry aunt.

"You're not up yet?" she asked, frowning at him in distaste. Or at least he thought she was frowning - he still couldn't really see her.

"I'm comin'," Alfred grumbled, pulling himself from his warm covers. He put his glasses on and at once the world burst into clarity around him. (Excluding where the scratches on the lens, courtesy of Javier, were, of course.) And oh, imagine that; his aunt **was**frowning at him.

"¡Vamanos! I want you to cook the bacon; don't let it burn," she ordered, before slamming the door shut on him again.

Alfred debated the consequences of going back to bed before sighing - very loudly and overdramatically - and searching for a pair of socks. He found one quite easily, but the second turned out to be a challenge, and it wasn't until he searched under his bed that he found it.

And then screamed. Loudly.

But you couldn't really blame him; it had a spider on it.

The next few minutes were spent wildly waving the sock through the air and jumping up and down, screaming at the spider to get off.

Alfred really should have been used to spiders, considering the closet under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept. However, the little monsters continued to terrify him; in fact, the only things that scared him more than spiders were ghosts and a world shortage of hamburgers.

After finally dislodging the spider, Alfred placed the gloriously-spider-free sock on his foot and left the closet. (Literally, mind you.)

Now a few words on Alfred F. Jones - he was rather short and skinny, though he swore that he would one day tower above Senor Garcia and have large muscles to match. His eyes were bright blue - much like the sky - though covered with scratched and broken glasses that had to be held together with a lot of scotch tape. (Alfred, you see, was Javier's favorite punching bag, and the glasses often got in the way of that.) His hair was blond and messy, with one stubborn cowlick that absolutely refused to lay flat, no matter what it was put through. (And yes, that had been put to the test after Senora Garcia had attacked him with a bottle of hair gel and the stubborn piece of hair still managed to defy gravity.)

Now, Alfred did not necessarily hate his appearance. Or dislike it at all, really. (He did have a rather unfortunate streak of egotism, despite living with a family such as the Garcias.) But his favorite thing about his appearance was a strange little scar on his forehead that was shaped like a star; it was so perfectly shaped that it was rather hard to believe it was only an accident.

A car crash, his aunt had answered when he asked how he had gotten it. A rather unfortunate one that had also caused the death of his parents and left him with his aunt and uncle. When he had tried to ask more about it, his aunt had merely said, "Don't ask questions," and walked away. (That was one of the most important rules when living with the Garcias - _don't ask questions_.)

But one of the strangest things about Alfred - beyond his oddly shaped scar - was his habit of attracting the odd and the unexplained. It seemed that wherever the boy went, strange events were sure to follow.

Once, after yet another battle with Alfred's cowlick, Aunt Maria had grabbed a pair of scissors and sniped the hair off - unfortunately for Alfred, she had taken off quite a bit of hair in the process and the poor boy was left with a rather embarrassing bald spot on the top of his head.

He had gone to sleep, mourning the loss of his good looks and dreading what the other kids at school would think; in the morning, he had awoken to find that all the hair had grown back overnight, and there was the little cowlick - standing as tall and stubborn as ever.

Another time, after arguing with his Uncle, his toy solider had been taken away. (The toy soldier was one of the only toys Alfred actually owned; it had originally been a birthday present for Javier, but when he didn't want it, it had been given to Alfred.) However, in the morning, he found not one but ten wooden soldiers in his closet while the original remained in the trash; and no matter how much Uncle Miguel questioned him, he could not explain where they had come from.

The strangest time of all was on a family visit to the zoo when the glass surrounding the snake cage had very simply disappeared into thin air. (This particular event was so very strange, in fact, that a whole chapter could very easily be spent detailing it. However, this will not be the case, and you may use your imagination instead.)

The rest of the family entered the kitchen just as Alfred finished with the bacon. It was divided up among them (with only the blackest, most burnt pieces for Alfred, himself) and the four of them ate in silence.

After a while, Uncle Miguel glanced at his son and said, "Go get the mail, Javier."

Javier frowned, glancing at Alfred. "Why can't he get it?"

Uncle Miguel looked at Alfred and nodded. "Go get the mail," he told him.

Alfred frowned, and glared at Javier, who grinned. "Why can't he get it?" he whined, pointing a half-eaten piece of bacon in Javier's direction.

Uncle Miguel glared at him. "Don't argue."

Stuffing the rest of his bacon in his mouth, (and oh-so-maturely sticking his tongue out at Javier in on his way past) Alfred left the house and headed for the mailbox. He scooped up the stack of letters and the daily paper into his arms and stomped back to the house, grumbling all the while.

It was as he was calling Uncle Miguel all the nasty names he could think of in both English and Spanish (under his breath so no one would hear, of course) that he happened to look down into the pile and notice something quite odd: one of the letters was addressed to him.

Which was practically unheard of, as Alfred had never received a letter ever in his life. (And he didn't realize people even sent letters anymore, what with e-mail and texting being so much quicker and more convenient.) No one at school liked Alfred, he had no family outside of the Garcias, and he didn't really know anyone outside of his school.

Yet there could be no mistake, for there it was, clearly written in ink:

_**Alfred F. Jones  
>The Closet Under the Stairs<br>Chicago, IL  
>United States of America<strong>_

Alfred eagerly pulled the letter from the pile, clutching it in his hands as he handed the rest of the stack to his Uncle. With a wide grin on his face, he began ripping it open quickly, eager to see what it said.

Of course, a wiser approach would have been to escape to his closet and open it in secrecy. But then again, Alfred never was one for thinking ahead.

"What's that?" Javier asked curiously, peeking over Alfred's shoulder to get a better look a the letter.

"None of your business," Alfred replied, holding the letter close to his chest so Javier couldn't see it. (It was _his_letter after all, and he didn't want to share it with anyone - especially not Javier.)

Javier's question had attracted the attention of Uncle Miguel, unfortunately, and the large man grabbed the letter out of Alfred's hands. He unfolded it, scanning the contents quickly; Alfred watched as Uncle Miguel's went from brown to white to an interesting shade of purple as he read.

Uncle Miguel glared first at the letter in his hands and then at Alfred. And then back at the letter. And then back at Alfred, as if he couldn't decide which one he hated more. "Maria," he croaked, his usually loud and booming voice nothing but a whisper. Aunt Maria rushed to his side immediately and read the letter quickly.

And promptly paled as much as her husband. "¡Dios mío!" she gasped, looking quickly between the letter and Alfred.

"What is it?" Javier whined, attempting to see, but his parents quickly covered the letter and pushed him away.

"Let me see!" Alfred exclaimed, leaping forward to grab it. Uncle Miguel lifted it high above his head and far out of Alfred's reach. "It's mine!" he whined, jumping for it. "I WANT TO READ IT!"

Uncle Miguel pushed him back, and then, cursing heavily in Spanish (while Aunt Maria rushed forth and covered Javier's ears) he ripped the letter into shreds and threw the remains into the trashcan.

"Hey!" Alfred yelled, staring at the ripped shreds in shock. "THAT WAS **MY**LETTER! You can't just rip it up!"

Which, of course, was a bad move; at once, all of Uncle Miguel's anger was directed towards Alfred. "Closet. **Now**," he commanded. Alfred opened his mouth - no doubt to argue some more - but Uncle Miguel grabbed his wrist in his large hand and dragged him to the closet, Alfred screaming and hollering the entire way. He pushed the struggling boy inside and shut the door behind him.

(The second rule at the Garcia house was this - _don't argue_. It was also the rule that Alfred seemed unable to understand.)

Alfred pounded at the door. "That was my letter!" he screamed again, in case his Uncle hadn't heard the first time.

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><p><em>Javier Garcia - Panama! And I really don't know much about Panama, so he probably won't have much of a personality past what Dudley had in the books. Also, this will speed up! I promise! Once Alfred gets to Hogwarts!<em>

_translations: (and it's been a while since I took Spanish so I hope they're right)_

_Despiértate - Get up! (command)_  
><em>Ahora, niño - Now, boy<em>  
><em>Vamanos - let's go; hurry up<em>  
><em>Dios mio - My God<em>

_Also, you may notice there's no street or house number on the letter address...I don't know any addresses in Chicago, so just make one up, yeah?_


	3. An Unexpected Trip to Mexico

_Sorry for the delay; school has started and so has marching band, which means I don't get a lot of free time anymore. I'll try and update as often as possibly._

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><p><strong>Chapter 3: An Unexpected Trip to Mexico<strong>

That, of course, was not the last the Garcia heard of that incident; Alfred was determined to remind them at every possible moment that they had ripped up **his **letter. He screamed it loudly from his closet all night long, kicking and pounding on the door and throwing such a fit that neither Maria nor Miguel Garcia could get even a wink of sleep that night. (Javier, who could quite possibly sleep through the end of the world, was fine.)

And then, at around five in the morning, Alfred finally tired of his screaming and kicking, and fell asleep, leaving the house in silence at last. In the morning, he couldn't even remember what he had been angry about the night before, and the Garcias thanked God for Alfred's short memory span.

And then Javier returned with the mail and announced to everyone at the table that Alfred had received yet another letter; the chaos began at once, both Uncle Miguel and Alfred lunging at a rather terrified Javier in an attempt to grab the letter first. Forks fell to the floor. Coffee spilled across the table. Scrambled eggs went flying. Aunt Maria screamed. Javier screamed louder.

And Alfred and Uncle Miguel began a game of tug-a-war with the letter until finally the poor thing couldn't last any longer and ripped in half once again.

And once more, there was enraged screaming from a certain Alfred F. Jones.

Late that night, Alfred finally ceased his screaming and thought things through logically (for perhaps the first time in his eleven year old life). Seeing as his screaming and tantrum-throwing was apparently doing nothing, he wisely decided to switch tactics. When he was sure the rest of the family was asleep, he snuck from his closet and crept towards the front door as quietly as possible. (Which, considering Alfred wasn't really one for grace or quiet, wasn't all that quiet; especially that one part when he walked right into a wall, stubbed his toe, and hopped about on one foot, whining.)

Amazingly enough, he made it to the door without anyone waking and checking on him. Alfred took a seat by the door, planning to stay there all night until the mail was delivered; his plan was then to rush out to the mailbox and grab his letter as quickly as possible in the early morning and immediately hide himself away in his closet to finally, _finally_, read the contents of **his **letter.

It was a good plan. Really, it was, and would have perhaps worked.

If Alfred didn't fall asleep ten minutes later, only to be awoken in the morning by his surprised Aunt who demanded to know why he was sleeping by the door.

That morning at the breakfast table he watched as his letter was ripped up for a third time. Following breakfast, Alfred, Javier, and Aunt Maria watched from the front porch as Uncle Miguel kicked down the mailbox and then hid it in the garage.

"Now they can't deliver the letters," he said smugly, lighting a celebratory cigar. Aunt Maria nodded, but didn't look particularly convinced, Javier punched Alfred for no reason at all, and Alfred pouted for the rest of the day.

.

.

The next day was Friday; there were fifteen letters addressed to Alfred sitting on the front porch. Uncle Miguel screamed when he saw Alfred try to smuggle them in. Javier, now extremely curious about what these letters actually said and why his father was so against Alfred reading them, grabbed one and tried to read it; he had just ripped it open when Uncle Miguel yanked it from his hands and smashed his lit cigar onto it, catching it on fire.

He let it burn into ashes before dropping them on the floor, ordering Alfred to clean the mess up. He ripped the remaining fourteen letters up as he left the room. (Alfred had to clean those up as well.)

.

.

On Saturday, it got a little chaotic. Twenty three letters arrived for Alfred in unusual places. Inside the coffeepot. Under the milk carton in the fridge. Two in the potted plant. Ten on the breakfast table. One on Uncle Miguel's favorite recliner, three on the love seat, and five on the sofa.

Uncle Miguel, after collecting all of them and searching the whole house through for more, called the post office and screamed at them for fifty-five minutes straight; Aunt Maria fed the letters through a paper shredder as Alfred watched mournfully from the doorway.

Someone began poking his backside insistently and he turned to come face to face with Javier. "Who in the world wants to talk to you so much?" he asked, looking honestly confused. Alfred scowled and punched him in the shoulder. Javier cursed and punched him in the face. Aunt Maria yelled at Alfred for fighting and made him clean up Javier's room for punishment.

(Afterwards, Alfred had to go find more tape for his glasses.)

.

.

The next day, though, Uncle Miguel was in a fantastically good mood. "Domingo," he said gleefully when everyone was at the table. "They can't deliver mail today."

Uncle Miguel began humming, a truly frightening sight that could only mean he was extremely happy. He was halfway through the chorus of Guantanamera when something shot out of the chimney so fast that it flew across the living room, into the kitchen, and hit Javier in the back of the head. Alfred laughed so hard he nearly didn't see what the object even was until Javier, cursing quietly in Spanish, pulled it up off the floor so everyone could see it.

It was, of course, a letter. Addressed to a certain Alfred F. Jones.

Uncle Miguel screamed and lunged for Javier, who screamed and leapt away from the table and his frightening father. The table fell over as Uncle Miguel lunged across it and Aunt Maria screamed as plates and food went flying for the second time that week.

Just as Uncle Miguel got a hold of the letter, something else came shooting through the chimney. And then something else. And then, quite suddenly, at least forty or fifty letters began pouring out of the chimney, flying through the Garcia house and covering the floor in white.

With an enraged yelled, Uncle Miguel pushed Alfred over and rushed towards the fireplace, attempting to block any more letters from coming in. Javier ran out of the room to avoid getting hit yet again as Aunt Maria ran to the living room and tried to grab as many letters as she could.

Alfred ran after her, grabbing about five or six of the letters off the floor and stuffing them in his shirt. He was almost out of the room when Uncle Miguel grabbed the back of his shirt, spun him around, and stole the letters from him.

"GET OUT!" he screamed, shaking Alfred so hard his glasses nearly fell off his face. He then hoisted the screaming, flailing boy over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and hurried into the hall where Javier was sitting with wide eyes. Aunt Maria, realizing picking up all the letters was a lost cause, followed after them.

"We are leaving. Now. Go get your things," Uncle Miguel ordered, shaking Alfred once more before setting him down.

After ten minutes, they were in the car, each with a small bag of clothes and other necessities. Uncle Miguel was silent and the enraged look on his face made him absolutely terrifying. There was no talking as they drove. And drove. And drove some more.

Aunt Maria looked as if she wanted to argue, and kept opening her mouth before changing her mind and shutting it again. Finally, after a quiet string of Spanish curses, she leaned back in her chair and watched the window.

Javier and Alfred, who were both incapable of sitting still for long periods of time, silently started a game that involved punching each other as hard as they possibly could in an attempt to make the other scream.

And Uncle Miguel continued to drive; every once in a while he would suddenly make a turn, muttering, "Shake 'em off," as he did so, glancing around in a paranoid manner.

They drove through the night, and then through the next day, stopping only for gas and food.

Eventually, after two days of driving, they pulled into the parking lot of a small hotel and rented an even smaller room. (Alfred had to share a bed with Javier, who kicked him every few minutes and muttered in his sleep about patacones.)

.

.

That morning as they were eating the snacks they had packed for breakfast, there was a knock on their door. Uncle Miguel opened the door to a scrawny employee who asked, "Is there an Alfred Jones here?"

("Alfred F. Jones," Alfred corrected in the background.)

The employee glanced at Alfred and then held up a letter for them all to see. "There's about a hundred of these on the front desk."

Alfred hurried over and peeked his head around Uncle Miguel. He could just barely make out the mailing address on the envelope.

**_Alfred F. Jones  
>Room 23<br>The Bronco Motel  
>Brownsville, Texas<em>**

Uncle Miguel's face turned a peculiar shade of purple before he screamed, "THERE IS NO ALFRED JONES HERE!" and slammed the door on a very confused and frightened employee.

They packed their things immediately and jumped back in the car. "They won't find us in Mexico," Uncle Miguel said gleefully as he started the car.

(Alfred mourned the loss of hamburgers and the fact that he would have to speak more Spanish than usual.)

"As much as I would love to go to Mexico, can't we just go home?" Aunt Maria asked, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

"That's where they'll expect us to go," Uncle Miguel snapped back.

Javier's eyes widened and he paused in the middle of pinching Alfred's arm. "Who?" he whispered fearfully.

Alfred rolled his eyes at him. "Duuuuh," he whispered back. "The supervillians."

.

.

Eventually, Uncle Miguel stopped in front of a little, run-down shack on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There were no other buildings or people in sight and when they tried the front door, they found it unlocked and the house empty.

They moved their things from the car into the shack and briefly explored. There was only one bed so Javier slept on the living room - if it could be called that - couch while Alfred got the floor.

They all settled in and went to bed.

Except Alfred, who had suddenly realized something important: it was the day before his eleventh birthday. Or perhaps, he reminded himself, it already was his eleventh birthday. Curious, he snuck over to the side of the couch and grabbed Javier's arm, turning it so that he could read the watch on his wrist.

It was 11:58 - only two minutes before he turned eleven.

Alfred made himself comfortable and watched the numbers on the watch closely, counting down.

Only one minute to go. Thirty seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One…

_**BOOM!**_

The entire shack shook as something pounded on the door. Alfred stared at it in shock. Someone was outside, he realized. Someone who wanted to get in.

* * *

><p><em>Domingo - (spanish) Sunday<br>Guantanamera - best known Cuban song; also considered the most patriotic  
>Patacones - also known as 'Tostones'; made from platains; they're fried and taste sort of like french fries; they're really yummy!<em>

Next chapter will be fun!


	4. The Keeper of the Grounds

_It's been a while. Sorry. Life is busy._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: The Keeper of the Grounds<strong>

BOOM! The person outside knocked again. Javier jerked up so quickly he tumbled off the couch and onto Alfred. The door shook again and he latched onto the other boy, wide eyes staring at the door in fright.

BOOM! went the door and the two boys screamed. There were a crash from the bedroom and Uncle Miguel suddenly burst into the room wearing only his boxers, his untied hair flinging around his face as he skidded to a stop beside the boys. Alfred couldn't decide if he was more frightened of the mysterious knocking, the sight of his uncle in his boxers, or the fact that his uncle was currently wielding a bazooka and attempting to aim it at the door, though surprise and sleepiness seemed to be throwing his aim off.

_Where the hell, _Alfred thought wildly, _had he been storing that thing?_ He was fairly certain he hadn't seen it shoved in the trunk of their mini-van; something like that was pretty hard to conceal.

"Quien esta alli?" Uncle Miguel yelled, still wielding the bazooka menacingly. There was no answer, not even another knock. Uncle Miguel paused for a moment, not daring to lower his weapon; Alfred and Javier, still clinging tightly onto each other, leaned forward, peaking their heads out from behind the massive form of Miguel.

"Who's there?" Uncle Miguel called again, this time in English. "I'm armed," he declared, waving the bazooka a little in a threatening manner, as if the mysterious knocker could somehow see it through the door. Alfred watched its movement with wide eyes, edging away from his uncle. (But not in fright, obviously - heroes were never frightened.)

It was silent beyond the door, and the three in the room wondered if perhaps the mysterious knocker had left. And then -

SMASH!

The door flew off its hinges and crashed to the floor a few feet away. Javier screeched and dove behind the couch, yanking Alfred with him, who peaked his head back over to spot the intruder.

A tall dark-skinned woman stood in the doorway, brown eyes flashing dangerously from behind long black hair adorned with feathers and beads of all colors; in her left hand was a long walking stick, blue clothed rapped around the top to hold on a number of different feathers. Her eyes traveled across them one by one slowly, examining them, before they stopped on Alfred and seemed to light up - she did not smile, but seemed to relax slightly at the sight of him.

Ignoring the missing door, she stepped into the shack and paused a few feet from Uncle Miguel, where she stopped to straighten the strange cloak around her shoulders (which, if Alfred wasn't mistaken, was made of dark brown fur) and push her hair from her face, looking completely unconcerned about the bazooka still aimed her way.

Uncle Miguel, Alfred, and Javier stared in shock. Finally satisfied with her appearance, the woman looked up, annoyance flickering across her face as she asked, "Do you have any brandy?"

"What?" Uncle Miguel asked, the word hardly more than a gasp.

"Or another drink, maybe?" the woman asked. "It's been a long journey and I'm none too picky right now."

It was at this moment that Aunt Maria made her appearance; she stepped into the room, blinking sleepily. Taking in the sight of the strange, new woman, her husband clenching a bazooka between his hands, and the boys quivering behind the couch, she waited approximately five seconds before pivoting on her heel and heading straight back towards the bedroom. "It's too late to deal with this," they heard her mutter as she disappeared.

When Aunt Maria had disappeared into the bedroom, the strange woman calmly stepped past Uncle Miguel - still frozen in absolute confusion - and stopped before Alfred. She set the walking stick on the ground and grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet; resting her hands on his shoulders, she eyed him up and down, a slight smile tugging on the corners of her lips.

"Alfred," she said. "You've grown. Though I suppose it is to be expected; it's been eleven years."

Javier scrambled away from Alfred quickly, getting as far from the woman as he possibly could. _Traitor_, Alfred wanted to hiss at him, but his mouth didn't seem to want to cooperate. His brain was still processing what she had said and trying to make sense of it.

Uncle Miguel seemed to suddenly gain control of himself. He whipped around to face the woman and Alfred, a growl rumbling in his throat. "Get off my property or I'll remove you myself," he threatened, raising his weapon.

Once again it seemed the weapon had no affect on the woman; no fear seemed to grip her heart, and she merely raised an eyebrow. "Do not order me to do anything," she warned before picking the walking stick up off the ground and tapping the bazooka with it. And suddenly - no bazooka.

A scream rose from the corner - Javier, Alfred assumed, but he didn't turn to check. His eyes stayed locked on the strange stick in the woman's hands. (He needed to unlock a weapon like that in Call of Duty, he decided. That way when Javier occasionally let him play he could just make all of Javier's weapons disappear.)

Uncle Miguel looked first at the empty air between his hands, then to the walking stick, before letting out an impressive string of Spanish curses.

"Well," the woman muttered, before turning back to Alfred. "Hua Kola, Alfred," she said, nodding her head towards him. The words coming out of her mouth were foreign; Alfred simply stared at her in confusion, mouth gaping. Though the following words were perhaps more strange than that: "Happy Birthday."

The polite thing to say, of course, would have been 'thank you'; instead, Alfred leapt away from the woman, made the cross motions he had seen in _The Exorcist_, and shouted, "Who are you? How do you know it's my birthday?"

The woman only laughed at him. "My name is Awenasa. I'm the Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hetalia." She clapped her hands together, looking around. "Well, I don't know about you, but I really would like that drink. Perhaps a snack as well." She sat down on the lumpy couch and pulled a whicker basket from under her cloak, one that Alfred was quite sure had not been there before.

Alfred watched her warily as she removed a few apples and a bowl a grapes from it, along with a bottle of amber liquid that she took a few swigs of before setting aside, and a plate of some sort of meat - it looked like turkey.

His mind warned him that this woman was mysterious and possibly dangerous - maybe she was an alien; or maybe a humanoid robot sent from the future to destroy him - but his stomach was rather empty and was complaining quite loudly at the sight of food. In the end, his stomach triumphed over his logic, and he sat down beside Awenasa, digging into the turkey she handed him.

Uncle Miguel on the other hand took a step back. "Don't eat anything she gives you, Javier," he warned his son.

"It wasn't for him anyway," Awenasa informed him.

"Sho," Alfred asked, his mouth full of turkey. "Wafs Hethala?"

Awenasa's brown eyes glared down at him. "Swallow and then talk," she instructed and the intensity in her glare made him listen.

"So," Alfred said again once he had swallowed, "What's Hetalia?"

There was silence in response to his question; Alfred looked up from his meal to see Awenasa staring at him in absolute shock. "You don't know what Hetalia is? I knew you weren't receiving your letters, but -" She cut off, sending a glare Uncle Miguel's way. Turning back to Alfred she asked, "Didn't you ever wonder where your parents learned everything?"

Alfred wasn't sure if he was more thrown by 'your parents' or 'learned' - the first because he had never heard much about his parents other than Aunt Maria's explanation of their deaths and the second because the fact that this Hetalia was meant for teaching meant it wouldn't be very cool or interesting at all, even if its teachers randomly burst threw your door and made bazookas disappear into thin air.

"Learned what?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow and taking another large bite of turkey.

"Learned what?" Awenasa repeated, her voice a quiet hiss. Alfred looked at her in alarm. She was staring at Uncle Miguel with a look of such anger that he felt compelled to slide to the edge of the couch and away from her. (He took the plate of turkey with him.)

"You mean to tell me," Awenasa continued, her eyes glaring holes into Uncle Miguel who glared right back. "That this boy doesn't know a thing?"

Alfred felt insulted; he may not have been the brightest crayon in the box, but he certainly wasn't stupid - he _was_ a hero, after all, and the hero had to know how to outsmart any supervillians who came his way. "Hey!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet and placing his hands on his hips. "I know things! I know, like…math and stuff! And I've never gotten an F!" A few Ds, maybe, but hey: D was for Dynamite, right?

"I mean about our world," Awenasa explained, her expression softening as she looked over at him. "Your world. Your parent's world."

Alfred stared at her dumbly. "I thought there was only one world." Unless, of course, she really was an alien; which would be pretty awesome, actually, as long as she didn't try to eat him.

"But certainly you know about your parents, right?"

"I know they died in a car crash."

"A car crash?" Awenasa whispered. Alfred nodded. She stood to her feet; she was taller than Uncle Miguel by a few inches and she looked down on him. Alfred could see that her hands were shaking and suddenly, she exploded.

Not literally, of course. Just in the insanely-mad-and-screaming kind of way. (Alfred was a little disappointed; the other kind would have been more interesting.)

"YOU TOLD HIM THEY DIED IN A CAR CRASH?" she screamed. "You didn't tell him a thing - a single thing?"

"OF COURSE NOT!" Uncle Miguel yelled back, glaring right back at the taller woman. "And I forbid you to tell him anything!"

"Forbid me?" Awenasa asked, scowling. "You can't forbid me to do anything." She spun to face Alfred. "You're a wizard, Alfred."

Alfred stared at her. Silence filled the room and he waited for the cameramen to jump out, the Punked crew to grab him and tell him this was all a joke. No cameras appeared.

"I'm a what?" he asked finally.

Awenasa pulled something from her cloak and handed it to him; he looked down at it, realizing it was a letter - just like all the millions of letters that had come for him. _**His**_ letter. And he _**finally**_ was going to get to read it.

He tore into it eagerly, opening it and looking at what was written:

_HETALIA SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Romulus Vargas_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, International Confed. of Wizards, Former Empire)_

_Dear Mr. Jones,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hetalia School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Yao Wang,_

_(Deputy Headmaster)_

"Ummmm," Alfred said, quite eloquently after he had finished reading. He didn't quite know what to say; usually when that happened, he said something entirely random and off-topic, but at the moment, he couldn't even bring himself to do that.

A hand closed down on his shoulder and yanked him backwards. It was Uncle Miguel, who stepped in between him and Awenasa. "He's not going," he hissed, looking very angry indeed.

"And I'd love to see a Muggle like you stop him," Awenasa said, a slight grin curling the corners of her mouth upwards.

"A what?" Alfred asked.

"A Muggle," she explained, "is a nonmagical person, such as your aunt, uncle, and quivering cousin."

"We swore when we took him in that we'd stop all that ridiculous magic talk," growled Uncle Miguel.

"You knew?" Alfred gasped, looking up at his Uncle in shock. "That I'm a wizard?" He very much wished at that moment that he also had a walking stick so he could make Uncle Miguel disappear into thin air. He was a wizard and hadn't been told? He had magic powers of awesomeness and had never been informed?

"Of course we knew! That mother of your's, my wife's sister, was a freak! And that husband of hers, too! We almost didn't take you in, boy, remember that. We didn't have to give you a place to stay after your parent's went and blew themselves to smithereens!"

Alfred's mouth dropped nearly to the floor. "Blew up?" he chocked. "How?"

His question seemed to make Awenasa even angrier. "This is an outrage," she snarled. "Alfred Jones not knowing his own story when every single child in our world does!"

"They do?" Alfred gasped, a smile lighting up his face. He was _famous_!

"Yes, and I suppose I should explain." Awenasa sighed, rubbing at her shoulder irritably before pushing Uncle Miguel out of the way and sitting on the couch; she motioned for Alfred to take a seat next to her and he did. "It begins with a wizard who went bad. Evil. A man named…." she paused, frowning. "Well no one likes to say his name anymore. They're all still scared. Everyone just calls him You-Know-Who." She hesitated again, eyeing him before sighing. "But I suppose you have to know - Russia."

Alfred stared at her, blinked, and then leaned back and blinked again. "Russia is a country." She nodded. "Not a person." She nodded again.

"I realize, but that's what he called himself."

"So…what do magic people say when they're talking about Russia?" Heck, what did Russian magic people say when talking about their home?

"Other things. They describe it usually."

Okay, Alfred decided, magic people were weird.

"Anyway, this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started looking for followers. He got them, too. Some were afraid. Some wanted power; and that's something he certainly had. Power."

"So he's like a supervillian," Alfred said eagerly. A supervillian named Russia. Okay, yeah. Still weird.

"Only worse, because it was real life and not a cartoon," Awenasa scolded, narrowing her eyes at him. "It was a horrible time. Dark days. You didn't know who to trust; terrible things happened. He was taking over and murdering witches and wizards right and left. Some because they stood up to him and some because they were in the way of what he wanted. One of the only safe places was Hetalia. The headmaster, Romulus, was probably the only one Russia was afraid of.

"Your mother and father were good. I suppose. I liked your mother well enough but your father got on my nerves. Actually, I disliked him greatly. Not that I would have wished for anything bad to happen to him," she added quickly. "For some reason, and no one's really sure why, he showed up in the village you were living in on Halloween ten years ago when you were just a year old, and," she paused here, watching Alfred.

"He killed them. Just murdered them," she said finally. "But the biggest mystery of all - he tried to kill you too and couldn't do it. Couldn't kill you. But the curse he used left that mark on your forehead," she said, pointing.

Alfred reached up to touch the star-shaped scar on his head. "He couldn't kill me?" he asked, amazed.

"He couldn't. And that's why you're famous. No one ever lived when he decided to kill them, no matter how powerful. And yet you, a one year old child, could not be killed. And not only that, but after that night he disappeared. Vanished. Some say he died. Absolute buffalo if you ask me. I don't believe he was human enough to die. Others think he's waiting, biding his time but I don't think so. A lot of us think he lost his powers somehow and he's too weak to do anything now. Most of his followers repented and came back to our side."

_Hear that world? _Alfred thought. _Never doubt Alfred F. Jones' amazing heroic abilities. Defeating dark wizards before I was out of diapers._

"He's not going." Both Alfred and Awenasa looked over at Uncle Miguel in surprise; they had completely forgotten that he was still there.

"Of course he is," Awenasa argued. "He's Alfred Jones. He can't not go to Hetalia. And a Muggle like you is not going to stop him."

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT MAGICIAN TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" Uncle Miguel bellowed.

Awenasa leapt to her feet and raised the walking stick level to Uncle Miguel's face. "And I will not listen to you insult Rome!"

She flicked the stick in Javier's direction. Light yellow and white feathers sprouted from his skin in patches, his nose lengthened into a shape that was almost a beak but not quite there, and when he opened his mouth to scream, he sounded rather like a chicken.

Uncle Miguel let out a roar, ran to the other side of the room when Javier was standing frozen in shock, and dragged him into the bedroom. Moments later they heard loud, hysterical Spanish in a the shrill voice of his aunt.

"Oh dear. I shouldn't have lost my temper," Awenasa said after a moment, though she didn't sound very sorry, nor did she look very concerned as she took a seat on the couch again and made herself comfortable. "I'm not actually supposed to do magic and that's the second time since coming here."

"Why not?" Alfred asked, eyeing the closed bedroom door before sitting next to her.

"Well," she said, pursing her lips and eyeing him. "I was expelled. They snapped my wand. I kept the halves in secret and had them put into this walking stick. I didn't have a place to go, though, so Romulus Vargas let me stay and care for the grounds. Good man, Rome."

"Rome?" Alfred asked. What was it with these magic folk and using places as names?

"It's a nickname," Awenasa said simply.

"Why were you expelled?" Alfred asked, curiously. He wondered if she picked a fight with someone; somehow it seemed like the sort of thing she would do. (She probably won, too.)

"It's getting awfully late," Awenasa said in reply. "I for one, would like to get some sleep. We're getting up early to get your things."

* * *

><p>Awenasa - a Cherokee name meaning "my home". I thought it would be a good name for a nation.<br>_Quien esta alli?_ - Who's there?  
>Hua Kola - Lakota for 'hello'<p> 


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